George Antonius

Who was George Antonius?

George Habib Antonius, CBE was a Lebanese-Egyptian author and diplomat, settled in Jerusalem, one of the first historians of Arab nationalism. Born in Deir al Qamar in a Lebanese Antiochian Greek Orthodox family, he served as a civil servant in the British Mandate of Palestine. His 1938 book The Arab Awakening generated an ongoing debate over such issues as the origins of Arab nationalism, the significance of the Arab Revolt of 1916, and the machinations behind the post-World War I political settlement in the Middle East.